Traditional methods of freezing liquid compounds often involve storing the liquid compound in a freezer and waiting overnight for the liquid compound to freeze. For example, water is typically frozen into ice cubes by filling an ice tray with water and placing the tray in the freezer. A home freezer often provides sufficient cooling capacity to freeze liquid compounds such as water, juice, soda, and ice-cream mix. However, traditional home freezers do not reach the low temperatures that are necessary to freeze beverages made from drinking alcohols, liquors and distilled spirits that are ethanol-based.
Ethanol is the active ingredient in many popular alcoholic drinks. Ethanol has a freezing point of −114 degrees Celsius (−114° C., −173.2° F.), which is significantly lower than the 0° C. freezing point of water. Drinking alcohols, liquors and distilled spirits are generally measured by proof content, which is directly related to the percentage of alcohol present (e.g., 80 proof has an alcohol content of 40%; 100 proof: 50%, etc.). Alcoholic beverages that are in the proof range of 10-25 will typically freeze in a standard freezer since most home freezers are only capable of achieving a temperature of about −18° C. or higher. However, the higher alcoholic content of higher proof beverages lowers the temperature at which the liquids freeze into solids. Consequently, alcoholic beverages having higher proofs cannot be frozen in typical home freezers.
Additional freezing techniques for freezing select liquids and mixtures into solids are used for chilling alcohol mixtures, but such methods are unable to freeze high-proof beverages into a solid. One method uses the cooling energy provided by melting ice and is similar to processes used to make ice cream. In particular, ice is packed with rock salt to lower the freezing point, thus making the ice even colder. The ice is packed between a drum and a canister containing the mix, and periodically replenished as it melts. The canister is then rotated or circulated within the drum until the mixture is sufficiently frozen. However, this technique will not work to freeze drinking alcohols, liquors or distilled spirits into a solid because the temperatures reached using this method are not low enough. Moreover, this technique requires constant disposal of water and constant attention and maintenance, making it impractical and undesirable in a personal or social setting.
Other methods freeze mixtures of alcohol-based beverages into slush for drinking purposes. The mixtures made in these appliances generally have only a small amount of alcohol content compared to beverage mix content. This results in a higher freezing point allowing the combined alcohol and beverage mix to congeal and remain in a slush state. However, these appliances are not capable of freezing high proof alcohols past the slush state into a solid since the industrial refrigeration units on these units are typically not capable of achieving the required low temperatures for freezing alcohol into a solid.
While specialized refrigeration equipment or batch freezers may be available for industrial applications specifically requiring such drastic sub-freezing temperatures, such equipment is often bulky, expensive, and may include hazardous refrigerant materials or compounds. These drawbacks make use of such equipment on a personal or more social scale difficult if not impossible.
In view of the above, it is desirable to provide a device having an improved cooling mechanism to freeze liquid alcohol into a frozen alcohol mass in an accelerated manner under safe conditions.